rob Peter to pay Paul

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(Can this(+) etymology be sourced?) The expression refers to times before the Reformation when Church taxes had to be paid from St. Paul's church in London and to St. Peter's church in Rome; originally it referred to neglecting the Peter tax in order to have money to pay the Paul tax. This etymology is disputed.[1]

OMB decided that a large part of the money would come from other health programs for poor women and children. That penny-pinching tactic sparked an outcry. . . . Senator Christopher Bond of Missouri denounced the plan as pitting "one city's babies against another city's babies." Florida Governor Lawton Chiles, who chairs the National Commission to Prevent Infant Mortality, said it amounted to "robbing Peter to pay Paul."